One of the newly elected board-of-education members in Elgin School District U46 would like to rescind a change in the district’s curriculum policies that she says emphasize global cultures at the expense of America’s heritage.
Jeanette Ward, who would go on to be elected to a seat on the school board on Tuesday, spoke during the audience participation time at Monday’s board meeting. She spoke in opposition to a change that had been proposed in the board’s overall policies for selecting books and teaching materials. The board has been going through all the district’s overall policies as part of a periodic review. Other recent board meetings, for example, have resulted in the board changing the guiding policies for selling advertising, budgeting, dating violence, bullying, discipline and handling athletes’ concussions.
This week’s change in the curriculum policy had been suggested by a committee composed of board members Maria Bidelman and Traci O’Neal Ellis, Interim Superintendent Kenneth Arndt and Curriculum and Instruction Director Trisha Shrode.
After Ward spoke and Arndt defended the proposed change, the existing board members — Ellis, two people who were not up for re-election on Tuesday plus four members who either lost the election or chose not to run again — voted unanimously to accept the change Ward had decried.
The previous U46 policy for selecting materials stated, among several other qualities, that the materials should “represent the many religions, ethnic, racial and cultural groups that have contributed to our American heritage.” The new policy changes that wording to say that the materials should “represent the many religions, ethnic, racial and cultural groups in our global society.”
“The proposal is to replace ‘American heritage’ with ‘global society,'” Ward told the board. “A people that forgets its heritage is doomed to fall. We don’t need global citizens in a global society. There is no such thing as a global citizen, thankfully, at least not yet. In America, we need American citizens who understand why America is exceptional and who will impact the world for good. And, without a strong America, there would be no global society.”
“Not all cultures are equally good because they do not all value the same things,” Ward added. “Take, for example, a culture that believes in the mutilation of little girls, or a subset of a culture that believes that God wants them to kill ‘people of the Book.’ Shall we study how North Korea contributes to our global society? Or ISIS? Or the good that can result from a ‘one-child policy’ and a government who forcibly aborts children in order to enforce that one-child policy?
“It is not the proper role of the school to support and advance an ideology,” Ward said. “This is the realm of parents. When many of our children cannot read and write, or have little or no knowledge of American history, why are we wasting time with this bias?”
Arndt, who has been on the committee recommending the policy change, spoke in defense of the curriculum Monday.
“We will continue to promote our American heritage, but also to make students more tolerant of other views that need to be considered,” Arndt said. He noted that the schools start every day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
“In the past, schools have avoided controversial topics and have not engaged the students in critical thinking,” Arndt said. But he said last fall’s student march at South Elgin High School to protest alleged police violence was a good example of how students can become involved in controversies and debate them within the school.
In the modern world of international business and worldwide communications, Ellis said, “you can stay right here and never leave the District U46 community, and still you will need to interact globally.”
Sue Kerr, one of four new people elected to the school board Tuesday, said on Thursday that she supports the need for teaching materials to show different perspectives on the world.
“Teaching students to understand things doesn’t necessarily mean you approve of them,” Kerr said.
Kerr said that especially hit home with her after her son, a sailor in the Navy, was deployed to the Persian Gulf on a minesweeper.
“We’re sending our kids to fight battles in other countries, so we owe it to them to understand what’s going on there,” Kerr said.
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